Fitbit's new products don't address larger market issues

Fitbit will release an updated version of its Alta fitness tracker with heart monitoring and more accurate sleep-monitoring abilities, reports TechCrunch.

The company, which is the market leader in the fitness wearables space, has seen stagnant growth in device shipments as overall market growth has slowed. While the features may entice some new customers, they will do little to remedy the larger issues with the market.

Fitbit is aiming to create a more established replacement cycle, comparable to smartphone upgrade cycles, for its devices. By offering enticing features, the company could incentivize current customers to upgrade their devices sooner, while attracting new customers — which it has struggled to do over the last few quarters.

However, Alta's new features will likely do little to spur the overall market for fitness trackers. As BI Intelligence pointed out last fall, fitness tracker shipment growth has stagnated recently as a result of overall market problems, namely that consumers still find fitness trackers to be expensive and not a significant overall value add. Meanwhile, as smartwatches continue to drop in price, and become more powerful and more stylish, the fitness tracker space will continue to face challenges.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is disrupting businesses, governments, and consumers and transforming how they interact with the world. Companies are going to spend almost $5 trillion on the IoT in the next five years — and the proliferation of connected devices and massive increase in data has started an analytical revolution.

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We project that there will be a total of 22.5 billion IoT devices in 2021, up from 6.6 billion in 2016.

We forecast there will be $4.8 trillion in aggregate IoT investment between 2016 and 2021.

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